Amazon posts $126m loss despite bumper revenue increase

AMAZON HAS REPORTED a $126m loss for the second quarter, its biggest loss since 2012 and a huge increase compared to the $7m loss the company posted this time last year.

Amazon's loss, which is almost twice what analysts were expecting, came despite revenues increasing 23 percent to $19.3bn, compared with $15.7bn in the second quarter of 2013. However, the losses start to make sense when you look at the company's expenses, which came in at $19.4bn for the three month period.

Amazon remained vague about its sales figures beyond boasting that its Amazon Web Services (AWS) division saw strong growth over the quarter, with usage soaring by almost 90 percent across the three months.

However, Amazon hasn't revealed details about how many Kindle Fire tablets it sold during the quarter, which means it likely won't disclose Kindle Fire Phone sales figures next quarter, with the phone having launched in the US on Friday.

Apparently the firm doesn't expect the handset to do much good for its cash flow, as it predicted a third quarter operating loss of between $410m and $810m, compared to last year's figure of just $25m.

Still, Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon, remained positive. He said, "We continue working hard on making the Amazon customer experience better and better.

"We've recently introduced Sunday delivery coverage to 25 [percent] of the US population, launched European cross-border Two-Day Delivery for Prime, launched Prime Music with over one million songs, created three original kids TV series, added world-class parental controls to Fire TV with Freetime, and launched Kindle Unlimited, an eBook subscription service," Bezos added, seemingly without taking a breath.